Huskies drown Blue Devils with impressive shooting, 81-39

Eddie O'Neill

Sports Writer

eoneill@mininggazette.com

David Archambeau/Daily Mining Gazette
Michigan Tech’s Jalen Carter attempts a jump shot from near the free throw line during a game against UW-Stout Saturday at the Wood Gym.

HOUGHTON — The Michigan Tech men’s basketball team improved to 6-4 on the season after a big 81-39 win at home on Saturday against Wisconsin-Stout in the Wood Gym.

Dawson Bilski had a huge night for the Huskies as he chipped in 25 points to lead all scorers. Of those, six were from three-point land.

Bilski also contributed six rebounds, one assist, and one steal.

Bryan Heath followed with 10 points while Carter Johnston and freshman Owen White chipped in nine points apiece. Jake Witt added six points and hauled down a season-best 13 rebounds.

Isaac Appleby closed the evening with a team-high five assists. In total, 11 different players contributed points to the stat sheet in Saturday’s win.

“Dawson seemed so comfortable with the ball,” said Huskies coach Kevin Luke. “We are going to want to get the ball to him more.”

It took almost two minutes for either team to score. However, Appleby ended the stalemate as he made his way into the paint for the game’s first bucket 1:30 in. Following a steal by Bilski, Appleby took advantage of another opportunity in the paint by putting in a layup to extend the edge to 4-0. Bilski then fired in a triple at the 3:00 mark and then tacked on another trey to extend the gap to 10-0 with 16:43 remaining in the first half.

The best UW-Stout could do was to creep within two points at 12-10 on the strength of a 10-2 scoring run of their own midway through the first half. The Huskies, however, outplayed the Blue Devils and led 38-17 at the half.

The second half looked much the same for Michigan Tech. Of note in the second half was a big dunk by Witt to make it 42-20 with just under 17 minutes to go.

Tech collected 39 more points during the course of the final 17 minutes to secure the victory

“It was nice to see all of players get points tonight,” said Luke. “Sometimes you just need a big scoring game like this.”

As a team, Tech shot 29-of-54 from the floor (53.7 percent) and were 13-of-23 from three-point range (56.5 percent). The Blue Devils shot 16-of-59 (27.1 percent) and were 3-for-27 (11.1 percent) from the three-point line. The Huskies out-rebounded UW-Stout 46-30, had 18 total assists, and scored 22 points in the paint. The Huskies field goal percentage of 53.7 percent was a season high.

The Huskies are back at home on Wednesday when they host Winona State in a non-conference game prior to the holiday break. The tip-off is slated for 5:30 p.m.